ForConstructionPros.com

Contractors often seek out high-profile jobs, partly for their own satisfaction, partly for their resume, and partly because high-profile projects can be lucrative. But these types of job should often carry a warning with them: Caution: Complex work about to begin.

The job Advanced Pavement Technologies (APT) took on last year for Six Flags Great Adventure is a perfect example. Not only was the high-profile project large, encompassing more than 2.2 million square feet of parking lot, but it involved significant labor-intensive work that had to be done before the sealcoating and striping could occur—and it all had to be done in a tight time frame so the park could open on schedule.

As APT owner Ted Wilson knows, the only way to get this type of job completed under such tight deadlines is to plan and organize it so crews can be as productive as possible. And those are three attributes APT prides themselves on.

Cold call lands job

"After an overwhelming winter I decided to get an early start on the upcoming season," Wilson says. "I came up with a top ten list of potential customers and started making cold calls."

One of the return calls was from Six Flags, giving APT a chance to bid on a job that required repairing, sealcoating, re-designing the layout, and striping of its huge parking lot in Jackson, NJ.